Ken Scott, Engineer – Reviews and Commentaries

Magical Mystery Tour – Our Beyond White Hot Copy from 2007

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Looking back, 2007 seems to have been a milestone year for us here at Better Records, although we certainly did not know that at the time.

Later that same year we swore off Heavy Vinyl for good (prompted by the mediocre sound of the Rhino pressing of Blue) and committed ourselves to doing record shootouts of vintage pressings full time. (Please excuse the overuse of capitals.)

Our Commentary from 2007

The best sounding Magical Mystery Tour ever! Hot Stamper copies of this album are a regular feature on this site, but we’ve NEVER heard one like this — on EITHER side.

We had no choice but to award this album the very rare grade of A++++ (Four Pluses!) on both sides.

Our lengthy commentary entitled  entitled outliers and out-of-this-world sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

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Crime of the Century Is Ken Scott’s Producing / Engineering Masterpiece

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

The review for the WHS copy here is well over ten years old, so take it with a very large grain of salt.

Back in those days we still had not found the right British stampers for Crime of the Century, which turned out to have numbers that we thought would not be competitive with the earlier stampers.

It turns out that our foolish bias against the later stampers was nothing more than an embarrassing case of mistaken audiophile thinking.

Up until 2020, the right domestic pressings could still win shootouts.

Now we believe the Brits have the potential for the best sound. A recent example that went for big bucks. All it takes is for the right domestic pressing to win a shootout and we will be back to saying what is probably the best way to think about the album — both domestics and imports can sound amazingly good. It all comes down to the copies you have on hand, how you clean them and how well you can play them.

Our review from about ten years ago follows:

Amazing White Hot Stampers for the greatest Ken Scott production in history. This is his (and the band’s) Masterpiece, and now we have a pressing that allows us to revel in the glory that is Crime of the Century! 

Case in point: The vocals here sound amazing — natural and correct with lots of texture. Even the best MoFi copies are going to sound a bit phony when played against a killer copy such as this. Of course it’s a high-definition, high-resolution sound cut with super low distortion; it has to be to sound this good. Folks, this is the copy that lets you appreciate every last detail of the recording without hitting you over the head with “sonic effects”. It’s musical in a way that no audiophile pressing ever seems to be.

And of course the bass is awesome. Loud levels and big woofers will have your house quaking. Add to that the kind of ENERGY that the best pressings have in their grooves and you have an album that is guaranteed to bring the average audiophile system to its knees, begging for mercy. This is The Audio Challenge before you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of SONIC POWER, steer clear of Crime of the Century. It wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what Hot Stamper pressings like this one are here to do.

It’s ALIVE! It has BIG, PUNCHY sound that will fill up your living room and then some. It’s exceptionally transparent with superb clarity and lots of extension on the top end.

The typical Brit copy is dull, and that quality just takes all the magic out of the recording. The three dimensional space and clarity of the recording rely heavily on the quality of the top end.

The MoFi, on the best copies, shows you what is missing from the typical Brit, domestic or other import LP. This is what impressed me back in the 70s when I bought my MoFi. It was only years later that I realized what was missing and what was wrong.

Last time around the best copies were British. That was not the case this time except on side two, where one British copy was competitive, but not better than, our best domestic pressing.

Side One

White Hot A Triple Plus Sound! BIG and BOLD like crazy. When track one finishes you will ask yourself, as we did, “how can it get any better?”

The answer will come quickly enough. Track two has a bit of edge to the vocals in some places, but with MONSTROUS size and energy, and prodigious bass power, we still had to call it A+++. It’s not perfect but it is so amazing that picking nits simply misses the point. This side is ALIVE.

Side Two

Side two gets rid of any edge problems in the vocals — the sound is exceptionally full and rich, with HUGE and solid drums like practically none you have ever heard. (Ken Scott can record toms like nobody else in the studio. If you have the system to play it, this album is all the proof you will ever need.)

Huge amounts of space, the MOST top end extension and the LEAST phony sound of any copy we played make this a side two that simply cannot be beat. One Brit copy was as good, albeit in different ways of course, but no copy was better.

Baby You’re a Rich Man

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

Below we discuss listening to Baby You’re a Rich Man from side two of the German MMT.

If you own a copy of the album, play yours and listen for what we describe in this track by track breakdown.

For those of you interested in digging deeper into the sound of scores of other titles, our listening in depth commentaries have track breakdowns for some of the better-known albums we’ve done shootouts for.

Baby You’re A Rich Man

This track is Demo Disc Quality on the best Hot Stamper pressings. As I was playing this song for the shootout, the thought occurred to me that if I had one track to play to someone to demonstrate what a thrill it is to have a big, expensive stereo, it would be hard to pick a better song than Baby You’re A Rich Man.

The only other one that occurs to me off the top of my head is Sergio Mendes’ For What It’s Worth off of Stillness.

The sound is wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling and big as life. You can’t get that sound with screens and you can’t get it with smaller speakers and their smaller drivers.

Once you’ve heard that sound it’s hard to get too excited about any other.

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Captain Fantastic… – Number Six of Seven Consecutive Chart Topping Albums

More Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Elton John

The Classic Elton John According to Wikipedia

Besides being the most commercially successful period, 1970–1976 is also held in the most regard critically. Within only a three-year span, between 1972 and 1975 John saw seven consecutive albums reach number one in the US, which had not been accomplished before. Of the six Elton John albums to make Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” in 2003, all are from this period, with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ranked highest at number 91; similarly, the three Elton John albums given five stars by Allmusic (Tumbleweed Connection, Honky Château, and Captain Fantastic) are all from this period. 

After 1975, good Elton John music is hard to come by. A few songs scattered among a few albums — pretty slim pickins. But the four or five albums he made in the early ’70s are nothing less than AMAZING (and amazing sounding, when you get the right pressings of course).

The albums that went to Number One are listed below in bold.

Three of his best, including his absolute best album, Tumbleweed, did not go to Number One, although they did make the top ten.

1969 Empty Sky 
1970 Elton John 
1971 Tumbleweed Connection
1971 11-17-70 [live] 
1971 Madman Across the Water 
1972 Honky Chateau 
1973 Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player
1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 
1974 Caribou 
1975 Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
1975 Rock of the Westies 

Elton John Shootouts

Elton John is one of the handful of artists to produce an immensely enjoyable and meaningful body of work throughout the ’70s, music that holds up to this day. The music on his albums, so multi-faceted and multi-layered, will endlessly reward the listener who makes the effort and takes the time to dive deep into the sound of his classic releases.

Repeated plays are the order of the day. The more critically you listen, the more you are sure to discover within the exceedingly dense mixes favored by Elton and his bandmates. And the better your stereo gets the more you can appreciate the care and effort that went into the production of the recordings.

Elton John albums always make for tough shootouts. His producers’ (Gus Dudgeon being the best of them) and engineers’ (Ken Scott and Robin Geoffrey Cable, likewise the best) approach to recording — everything-but-the-kitchen-sink as a rule — make it difficult to translate their complex sounds to disc, vinyl or otherwise.

Everything has to be tuned up and on the money before we can even hope to get the record sounding right. Careful VTA adjustment could not be more critical in this respect.

If we’re not hearing the sound we want, we keep messing with the adjustments until we do. There is no getting around sweating the details when sitting down to test a complex recording such as this. If you can’t stand the tweaking tedium, get out of the kitchen (or listening room as the case may be). Obsessing over every aspect of record reproduction is what we do for a living. Pink Floyd’s recordings require us to be at the top of our game, both in terms of reproducing their albums as well as evaluating the merits of individual pressings.

When you love it, it’s not work, it’s fun. Tedious, occasionally exasperating fun, but still fun nonetheless.

Obsessed? You Better Believe It

Many of the Elton John albums you see listed above are records we admit to being obsessed with.

Currently we have identified about 150 that fit that description, so if you have some spare time, check out what we have to say about them.

Letter of the Week – “…it is smooth, lush, and virtually free of the usual gritty, grainy harshness…’

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently: 

Hey Tom,  

I’ve not written in a while and wanted to share a few thoughts. Upper most in my mind is a new perspective on The Beatles’ White Album. I’ve long been a proponent of a particular school of thought regarding this particular record. You may have heard it before. It goes like this: “If one removed all of the filler from this record, it would make one pretty killer Beatles single LP”.

I now must confess this is a fallacious argument, as it is most certainly based on having only heard the common Capital orange and black label pressings. I now stand corrected and happily enlightened. 

Not only is the overall sound of this Hot Stamper copy so superior tonally, it is smooth, lush, and virtually free of the usual gritty, grainy harshness – the sound jumps out of the speakers. It has a wide, deep sound stage and lots of deep, tight bass.

After the initial pleasant shock of the sound in general, what emerges is a plethora of overlaid tracks and instruments I’d no idea were even there in the first place. To my ears it is quite apparent that every track was carefully, even lovingly made.

This reminds me of a comment somewhere on your site where it is pointed out that hearing a really good pressing of a song you never thought you liked before can suddenly make you a convert. That is definitely the case with this one. All of the Paul and Ringo songs I always thought were lame filler now emerge as really excellent.

Imagine my dismay!

Robert B.

Robert,

That’s the kind of dismay we are going for with our Hot Stampers. When the sound is right, what really improves is the music.

Best, TP

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Letter of the Week – “The sound is better than any other White album I have heard.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

I am pleased with the great sounding albums I have purchased from your company and I have followed your advice and purchased 2 products from Walker Audio. The prelude record cleaner kit and the talisman. Today I received my latest album, the Beatles White Album ($399.99).

The sound is better than any other White album I have heard. I am concerned about the pronounced warp on the A/B record. I would think that would affect the tracking of the needle. I wonder what your feelings are about this.

With warm regards,

Ed B.

Ed,

Glad you liked our White Album!

As for a pronounced warp, I’m guessing — I have no way of knowing how warped the record actually is, so guessing is the best I can do — I’m guessing we thought the warp was so slight as to not merit a mention. Many records have light warps. Modern arms track them perfectly with no audible effects, and so we don’t bother to talk about them in our listings.

I’m assuming the record plays perfectly for you the way it did for us.

There should be no effect on the needle, if by effect you mean potential damage.

Hope that helps!

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Crisis? What Crisis? – It Took Us Until 2012 to Finally Beat the Audiophile Pressing We Swore By

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Supertramp Available Now

This listing is from 2012. Since that time we have been able to find and play a great many British pressings of the album, and they tend to win our shootouts.

But the domestic pressings can also do very well, just not well enough to win shootouts these days, a clear case of live and learn.

Our Understanding from 2012

TWO AMAZING SIDES, including an A+++ SIDE ONE! It’s not the A&M Half Speed, and it’s not a British pressing either. It’s domestic folks, your standard plain-as-day A&M pressing, and we’re as shocked as you are. Hearing this copy (as well as an amazing Brit; they can be every bit as good, in their own way of course) was a THRILL, a thrill that’s a step up in “thrillingness” over our previous favorite pressing, the A&M Half Speed.

The best of the best domestics and Brits are bigger, livelier, punchier, more clear and just more REAL than the audiophile pressing something we knew had to be the case if ever a properly mastered non-Half Speed could be found. And now it has. Let the rejoicing begin!

This is only the second White Hot Stamper copy of Crisis to come to the site, and it’s not the A&M Half Speed. It’s an AMAZING sounding British copy. The only other copy that we have ever heard sound this good was the domestic copy we put up a few weeks back.

The best of the best domestics and Brits are bigger, livelier, punchier, more clear and just more REAL than the audiophile pressing — something we knew had to be the case if ever a properly mastered non-Half Speed could be found.

Our previous commentary for our domestic pressings noted:

We’d love to get you some great sounding quiet British copies, but we can’t find any. They either sound bad (most of them) or they’re noisy (the rest). It is our belief that the best Hot Stamper pressings of this Half-Speed give you the kind of sound on Crisis? What Crisis? you can’t find any other way, not without investing hundreds of dollars and scores of hours of your time in the effort. Wouldn’t you just rather listen to the record?

Why did we think Jack Hunt‘s mastering approach for the A&M Half Speed was the right one?

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Letter of the Week – “I have never heard such transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy.”

More of the Music of The Beatles

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while back:

Well, I feel there is little I can say that could do justice to how this copy of the White Album sounds. It is simply mind-blowing! And it’s exactly the kind of sound reproduction that this masterpiece deserves. I’ve listened to quite a few pressings of this album before, but I have never heard such a transparent, full-bodied sound on any previous copy. And of course, the White Album is not exactly the most transparent recording to begin with.

Truly marvelous, and a privilege to be able to listen to the best sound of the best music there is!

You guys are real treasure hunters! Many thanks for the great service!

Bogdan P.

Bogdan,

Glad you liked our White Album. It’s amazing how good it sounds once you know which pressings are the good ones and which to avoid.

Hint: it’s the originals are to be avoided, but don’t tell that to the average record collecting audiophile. They will think you have lost your mind.

Best, TP

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Ridiculously Phony and Compressed Sound – The White Album on MoFi

Hot Stamper Pressings of The White Album Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another MoFi LP reviewed and found seriously wanting. The phony sound here is perfectly suited to the stone age stereos of the past. I should know. I had a stereo like that back in 1982 when this record came out, and I thought it sounded great.

The last time I played a copy of the MoFi, I could not believe how ridiculously bright, phony and compressed it was.

As sibilant as any Beatles record they ever did. Cry Baby Cry spits like crazy!

And to think I used to like their version when it came out back in the 80s.

A good example: on Yer Blues, the MFSL pressing positively wreaks havoc with all the added bass and top end The Beatles put on this track. The MoFi version is already too bright, and has sloppy bass to start with, so the result on this track is way too much BAD bass and way too much BAD spitty 10k-boosted treble. The MoFi is nothing like the good imports, which have way too much GOOD bass and treble.

Yer Blues ROCKS! Listen to the big jam at the end of the song, where John’s vocal mic is turned off but his performance is still caught by a room or overheard mic. They obviously did this on purpose, killing his vocal track so that the “leaked” vocal could be heard. (We have since learned from Ken Scott that it was mistake, but one they liked and left in.)

Those crazy Beatles! It’s more than just a cool “effect.” It actually seems to kick the energy and power of the song up a notch. It’s clearly an accident, but an accident that works. I rather doubt George Martin approved. That kind of “throw the rule book out” approach is what makes Beatles recordings so fascinating, and The White Album the most fascinating of them all.

The EQ for this song is also a good example of something The Beatles were experimenting with, as detailed in their recording sessions and later interviews with the engineers. They were pushing the boundaries of normal EQ, of how much bass and treble a track could have. This track has seriously boosted bass, way too much, but somehow it works.
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How We Go About Evaluating Big Production Rock Records

More Advice on Developing Your Critical Listening Skills

Big Rock Records such as Honky Chateau always make for tough shootouts. Their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach in the studio make it difficult to translate so much sound to disc, vinyl or otherwise. Everything has to be tuned up and on the money before we can even hope to get the record sounding right. Careful VTA adjustment could not be more critical in this respect.

If we’re not hearing the sound we want, we keep messing with the adjustments until we do. There is no getting around sweating the details when sitting down to test a recording as complex as this. If you can’t stand the tweaking tedium, get out of the kitchen (or listening room as the case may be).

Obsessing over every aspect of a record’s reproduction is what we do for a living. This kind of Big Rock Recording requires us to be at the top of our game, both in terms of reproducing the albums themselves as well as evaluating the merits of individual pressings.

When you love it, it’s not work, it’s fun. Tedious, occasionally exasperating fun, but still fun. And the louder you play a record like this the better it sounds.

More Is More

Elton John is one of the handful of artists to produce an immensely enjoyable and meaningful body of work throughout the ’70s, music that holds up to this day. The music on his albums, so multi-faceted and multi-layered, will endlessly reward the listener who makes the effort and takes the time to dive deep into the sound of his classic releases.

(more…)